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let's emit positivity, not carbon
I cannot believe it’s been a whole year since we launched our business!
This time last year I was in floods of tears because there had been a powercut throughout our whole neighbourhood and we had zero access to the internet!
It sounds dramatic I know but we’d promised everyone we would be launching our website (which still wasn’t quite ready) and it felt like everything was going wrong before we’d even launched.
Luckily, after a few hours of panicking the power came back on and we launched our website as promised on 17th August 2018 😊.
Then came the waiting game - we didn’t know if we would sell anything and we all sat around wondering what to do with ourselves next. We were absolutely over the moon when an order (from the fabulous @toria_talks_beauty) came through just 10 minutes after the website went live!
We danced around the living room excitedly and immediately rushed to our newly established packing station to get our first ever order parcelled up.
Leo and me looking pleased as punch with our first batch of parcels to send out!
Since then, we have been absolutely overwhelmed with the amazing positive response from everybody in the skincare community on Instagram and beyond. We set up our business not knowing if anything would come of it and the events that have happened since were beyond our imagination!
Thank you to everyone who has supported, commented, liked, ordered and given feedback to us over the past year. We literally couldn’t have done it without you and we’re incredibly grateful for your support! 🙏
Our lovely yurt, Badger at Blackdown Yurts!
Last year, we spent two nights in a yurt when we attended the Creative Business Network's amazing Creatival – a fantastic festival in Exeter for creative business ventures. Tickets are still available for this year’s Creatival, we’d highly recommend it if you’re thinking of or have already started your own creative business.
Even though Leo (who had never been camping before) took some convincing to try the yurt out, by the end of our stay he had come full circle and absolutely loved it!
It was here that we met loads of inspiring business owners such as the fabulous Lauren Aston of Lauren Aston Designs and we made friends for life with the wonderful Lucy and Chris of Lucy and Yak. They've been such a rock for us over the past year and they inspire us every day to keep pushing the boundaries and build an ethical business to be proud of.
It was actually while we were in the yurt one evening that Urban Outfitters US contacted us and asked to stock our products on their website! We couldn’t believe our eyes and had to keep checking the email to see if it was real.
Us on the shelves at Riley Rose!
Not long afterwards, Riley Rose contacted us too and we couldn’t believe it when they said they wanted to stock us in all of their US stores!
We haven’t been able to get over to the US to see it for ourselves, but we get super excited every time we get tagged in a picture of us on the shelves! If you’re US based you can go and check us out in-store and try out our testers to see what you think! Here’s a link to the list of Riley Rose stores 😉
Our L.E.V8 Cohort!
In October 2018 we managed to get a place on the OXFO L.E.V8 accelerator programme at the Oxford Foundry, University of Oxford. Our business was one of 10 selected annually for the University’s accelerator programme.
We spent an incredible 6 months working alongside a group of amazing entrepreneurs from the other businesses. We met some incredible people and gained valuable advice for our business from a stellar team of advisors and mentors!
Thank you so much to the Oxford Foundry team for supporting us and encouraging us to take our business to the next level.
The ill-fated pallet getting loaded up for its 2 week holiday in Los Angeles!
I’m not going to lie and pretend it’s all been amazing – there have been some really tough times and lots of challenges to overcome. Running a business definitely has a big impact on your mental health and there have been times when I’ve been too depressed to get up, let alone deal with the big problems!
We’ve had trouble with suppliers being really slow, having a massive knock on effect on us having enough stock. Then there was a breakdown in communication and a whole pallet of stock got stuck at LAX for 2 weeks without us realising! Oh and while the Royal Mail have been awesome at getting the parcels out to everyone on time, there have been a couple of hiccups and it’s very difficult not to get upset on behalf of your customers when things go wrong.
Thankfully, we can reflect on everything that’s happened and realise that while it was tough, each and every problem has taught us how to be more resilient and how to solve it next time! We’ve learnt that we need to chase suppliers regularly, how to send a pallet to the US properly and that Italy’s postal service can only deliver a parcel if you send it via tracked shipping!!
The final design versions of Stay Lit!
So much has happened for WOW YOU in such a short space of time but we’re not stopping yet! Here are a few of our plans for the next few months and beyond:
We’re launching a celebratory birthday candle called Stay Lit with our signature best loved scent from Super Serum! I chose the name to represent that feeling of taking time for yourself when you’ve had a stressful period and it’s been difficult to take a break. We often carry on despite really needing to rest and recuperate and I wanted it to be a little reminder to take care of yourself so you can stay lit and ready for anything!
I wanted to launch them today to mark our anniversary, but it turns out that candles need to cure for a few weeks to develop a stronger scent 🙈 so instead we’ll launch them in the next couple of weeks 😊.
Ever wondered the reason behind our name and logo?
We want to use our platform for good and we’d like to put more emphasis on our skin positivity mission going forward. We chose our name and logo to represent that feeling of being able to say to yourself in the mirror “Wow, you look amazing!”. We want to help everyone feel good in their skin no matter what by championing skin positivity & self compassion and by featuring real skin on our website and feed.
We’re in the process of setting up an ambassador program, so if you’d like to get involved in spreading the skin positivity message, please keep a look out for updates on this in the coming months! 😉
Some of our upcoming mini versions!
We’ve been meaning to release mini versions of our products for ages and it’s just been one of those things that keeps getting delayed! We’re currently making the finishing touches to our mini sets which should be released in the next few weeks. Keep an eye out for the release email as we only have a small number of units in this first batch!
If you’ve read my ramblings this far, thank you! We can’t thank you all enough for all of the kindness you’ve all showed us over the past year, here’s to many more years to come! 🥂
Best wishes,
Ella 💕
August 18, 2019
I started using Wow You! A year ago ( so probably when you first came to instagram) and I was completely blown away from the first use!! I am a loyal customer forever!!!
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Used the mini chill set & loved it. Have now ordered the full size (nearly opted out of the serum but tried a day without and realised how good it was for my dry skin) skin looks better after less than a week and delivery was also really quick. Loved the mask as well and will be ordering more of that in the future. Love supporting a small uk based business-very impressed
I ordered the mini kit couple months ago and instantly started to see my skin clear up. It leaves the skin super soft. I am now on my second mini kit and will forever use these products for my face. Ps; the mini kits last super long. x
ordered this mini bundle yesterday as have been trying to find something to work on my skin for years. within one day of use, my skin looks and feels so fresh, smooth and amazing?! im shocked but so so pleased. gonna keep using the minis until they run out. the way things are going, I'll be buying the regular sized bundle! beyond pleased. 100% recommend.
This product smells and feels amazing. It isn't too rough but also feels like you've given your face a great scrub! I would recommend this to anyone :)
Don't usually use a flannel but this one is lovely! Super soft and large it's perfect for the job
I love this little set, it smells fantastic and is really easy to follow. I usually have breakouts of spots and dry skin and while they didn't totally stop overnight they're really visibly lessening and my skin feels smoother and "glowier".
I purchased this for my daughter who suffers from dry skin, she was so impressed with the results she won’t use anything else. Would highly recommend.
I purchased the pack of trial size products for my daughter who is 14 and she absolutely loved the face mask, she then asked me to get her the full size one. This is the only face mask she will use now.
I have really bad acne/cyst type spots around my jaw line and kept seeing this and the reviews so I thought I'd give it ago. When it came It was packaged lovely and the kit was so cute.
I absolutely love the feel and and smell of the products but it hasn't done anything for my acne/cysts I have and has brought more out. I'm being persistent and I'm keeping at the routine until it all runs out as it may just be the badness coming out.
I accidentally got the wrong skincare bundle and I didn’t read the information properly but when I got the right one. My skin has never been so soft and my acne hasn’t been as bad as I’ve had issues in the last. The few things I do love about this skincare is that it’s cruelty free and the products smell so fruity and flora. Definitely worth getting anything from WOW YOU!!
Iv suffered with hormonal breakouts for 30 years! This is the only brand that has made any difference, and it’s significant. Even wearing a mask I gave not had any cysts on my chin since using this brand. Love all the products
Love this, soaks into skin well and leaves it nice and soft and glowing in the morning.
The smell of this is amazing and I can smell it on my skin still hours later!
Soaks into skin nicely and leaves it super soft
Both myself and my daughter love this cleanser. It smells amazing, cleans your face well and leaves skin feeling soft and not tight afterwards
Ella
August 18, 2019
Hi Mérida, thank you so much for your kind words and for all of your support so far! I’m really pleased to hear you’re enjoying our products lovely! Best wishes, Ella 💕